Review of "An Anthology of Contemporary Ghanaian Poems"

A poetry anthology is often expected to be, by the demanding reviewer, a much longed-for treasure capable of prising one’s senses open to the lyrical wonders neglected by our absent-minded daily encounters with literature, like Ama Ata Aidoo’s image of a white gazelle which slept under the city nims, away from the tropical morning glare, but poised, always, for a cue to spring into swift precise action. (‘In Memoriam: The Ghana Drama Studio’, pp. 26-27) This is utterly true of this anthology from Ghana – a country where, as pointed out in the volume’s Preface, ‘poets have been singing lustily’ for decades, ‘but in the wilderness’, and the fervent production and performance of poetry has often gone hand in hand with a disappointing scarcity of published books. A badly-needed anthology, then: other Ghanaian literary genres (drama, for instance) would certainly benefit from its editors’ initiative. Dekutsey and Sackey have assembled a good number of lines by well-known authors, offering readers tasty morsels which include, to mention only a few, Kobena Eyi Acquah’s ethical thrust: In the navel of the soul the midwives of the spirit say they can hear a heart-throb The experts, of course, disagree (‘In the Navel of the Soul’, 11) along with Kofi Awoonor's dirges, Ama Ata Aidoo’s bittersweet irony, Abena Busia’s raw indictments, Dannabang Kuwabong’s sombre lament: I the anonymous exile Stole down the coast Bordering my nativity grove To wake up to no dreams But to contentment of being concealing disillusion. No special rites awaited my homecoming. (‘The Exile’s Return’, 72) and Kwabena Osei-Boahene’s compelling lines on immigrant life in Europe: I am forever on the run with not a soul in sight I am the running man The mouse flees from the cat The chick from the merciless hawk and I from mortal man I am forever on the run from the long arm of the law (‘The Running Man’, 83) Inevitably, the restrictions of the anthology format imply a strict selection of poems for each author, in some cases leaving both reviewer and readers unsatisfied. What could probably have been avoided, though, is the puzzling absence of some pillars of Ghanaian verse, like Atukwei Okai’s aural somersaults and Kofi Anyidoho’s elegiac mood. Far from limiting itself to a collection of affirmed and published voices, this volume is also the result of a nationwide invitation (through various newspapers) to submit poems for publication. Such an ingenious initiative cannot but further enrich the final product, even though it is hard to overlook a few drawbacks. The works by published and unpublished poets, for example, are simply listed together in alphabetical order, with no biographical or bibliographical notes. Most of all, the lines of the ‘new’ poets selected by the panel of judges generally betray a marked penchant for heart-on-sleeve expression of feelings and over-rhetorical tones, to the detriment of that ineffable ambiguity that constitutes the marrow of poetry as a genre. This is particularly evident in the several religious poems, resonant with the social import of evangelical congregations in contemporary Ghana: But, Oh! who would carry the message to the deaf ears of the sinking travellers? who would be an eye to the blind … Send me, send me, Lord Here I come. (G. Dake, ‘Evangelism’, 59) just as in the many works on requited or unrequited love: If I were a wealthy king, I would build you a beautiful castle, Where you would live forever as my queen. (Peter D. Aniagye, ‘To His Fair Lady’, 36) or in the poems wailing the loss of traditional roots under the corrupting influence of Western ways. On the other hand, promising voices are not missing from this volume, such as Doris Adabasu Kuwornu, and Damasus Tuurosong with his sorrowful depiction of Africa: The white fly’s belch of satisfaction The sad victory song of the black victor, Ring out loud in my ears. The flapping wings of owl Disturb the silent, solemn song Of the mourning continent (‘The Mourning Continent’, 96) The appendixed annotations on each poem are yet another aspect of the book worth praise, even though they sometimes seem to suffer, similarly to the selected new poets, from an oversimplification of poetical nuances; particularly in the face of baffling images such as Kojo Laing’s: Once in the storm, Africa is handled in a dance by lost girls, who meet to make my thoughts wander into places where roots are suddenly fewer than the threads that bind them. (‘Africa Sky’, 75) As the Publisher’s Preface states, such detailed analyses of the poems are to be viewed in the context of a future use of the book in schools – but, one could add, also academic libraries would undoubtedly benefit from this publication.